Dallas club manager groped girl, police documents say

The 41-year-old manager of the Dallas nightclub Darkside groped a 15-year-old girl as she danced in a cage in her underwear and later may have drugged her, according to police documents.

The girl told police she doesn’t remember leaving the northwest Dallas club but woke up in a bed with two other girls at manager Thomas Eppelsheimer’s Lewisville home earlier this month.

Eppelsheimer was arrested Monday and charged with indecency with a child and sexual performance of a child, both felonies. He was not arrested on a drug charge.

The documents detailing Eppelsheimer’s arrest and a petition filed in Dallas County civil court offer a glimpse into the city’s effort to shut down the 17-and-older club where officials say patrons as young as 14 are allowed in to dance, have sex and use illegal drugs.

But the city has hit a roadblock in shutting down the club in the 3000 block of West Northwest Highway. Its owner, Wyakie Glenn Hudson, says he’s running a youth outreach ministry called NRG Mission and is exempt from the city’s zoning restrictions, which require dance halls to close at 4 a.m.

The club drew crowds of up to 1,000 people, according to a former disc jockey.

Until his arrest Monday, Eppelsheimer was a director for NRG. Eppelsheimer was fired from the board shortly after his arrest, according to court documents filed Thursday by NRG’s attorney, Grant Walsh.

Eppelsheimer couldn’t be reached for comment, and Walsh declined to comment. But according to the documents filed with the lawsuit, Hudson said he doesn’t allow illegal activities at the club.

“The weekly event known as ‘Darkside’ is just one of NRG’s outreach ministries to young adults in the Dallas-Fort Worth area to draw them into the ministry,” Hudson said in the document. “NRG employs staff members who are trained and instructed to search all visitors (and bags) who attend Darkside events in order to prevent the introduction of drugs or alcohol to the premises.”

The city asked District Judge Emily G. Tobolowsky on Wednesday to grant a temporary restraining order that would have forced Darkside to stop operating as a late-night club immediately.

But Tobolowsky declined to make a ruling until after an Aug. 3 hearing, in part, she said, because the case could involve First Amendment issues and she wanted to see more evidence from the club, said Melissa Miles, Dallas senior assistant city attorney.

“We asked the judge to do something about it, we brought it to the judge’s attention that there were charges against the management of supplying drugs to minors, sexual … charges in relation to minors,” Miles said Thursday. “We laid it all out, and that’s all we can do. We did everything we can do to try to immediately deal with that, stop that situation.”

Tobolowsky could not be reached for comment Thursday. Her decision cannot be appealed.

The judge could grant a temporary injunction after the upcoming hearing that would effectively shut down the club until a trial is held.

In the meantime, the organizers plan to open at 10 p.m., according to a Facebook page promoting the club. Dallas police say they will keep a close eye on the establishment, which operates Friday and Saturday nights and stays open until 7 a.m.

“We’re going to keep providing additional extra patrols and make sure that as far as we’re concerned, they are in compliance and we have a physical presence,” said Deputy Chief Malik Aziz, commander of the northwest patrol division.

Aziz said uniformed officers could enter the building if they receive complaints about possible criminal activity.

Detectives began investigating in the spring after receiving several complaints about the club. Undercover Dallas police watched patrons use drugs, dance and engage in sex acts, according to the complaint. The officers observed no religious services or activity during four visits to the club and made 15 purchases of illegal narcotics including hallucinogenic mushrooms, morphine, LSD and Ecstasy, the complaint states.

During the investigation, narcotics detectives learned that Eppelsheimer may have drugged the 15-year-old girl.

According to the affidavit, when the girl arrived at the club wearing only a bra and panties, Eppelsheimer told her that he wanted her to dance in a cage but that she would first have to change her panties.

While changing in his second-floor office, the girl told police she thought he wasn’t watching. But when she glanced back, she saw him watching in a mirror with a grin on his face, according to the affidavit.

They went back downstairs, and the girl began dancing in the cage. The girl told police Eppelsheimer grabbed her and told her she was sexy. He also tried to unfasten her bra, she said.

The teen said she took a pill offered to her by a friend and then drank water given to her by Eppelsheimer that she said “tasted funny.” She said she felt dizzy and sweaty, and didn’t remember leaving the club.

She said she later woke up in a bed at Eppelsheimer’s house beside her friend, who was naked, and another girl who was fully clothed, but Eppelsheimer told the girl that “nothing happened.”

When authorities later talked to the girl, they took her to Parkland Memorial Hospital for a rape test. But because more than five days had passed, it was too late to perform the test, the affidavit said.

Hudson, 37, of Dallas became a minister through Universal Life Church, an online organization that provides free and instant ordination to anyone.

In the civil court filing, Walsh provided the “Essential Tenets of Faith and Doctrine of NRG Mission.”

It states that the mission believes in a higher power and creator called “the Divine Energy.”

“Although every person has tremendous potential for good, all of us are marred by an attitude of disobedience and selfishness, and sometimes even self-destruction, causing separation from the Divine Energy and leading to many problems in our lives. We call this stage of spiritual separation the Darkside.”

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